This invention relates to an automatic message announcement system which automatically announces the necessary information about trains arriving at a railroad station, and more particularly to an automatic message announcement system suitable for modifying a standard message announcing that a train is approaching the platform of the station.
Usually, when a train approaches to or arrives at the station, an announcement about the approach or arrival of the train is performed at the station premises. Such announcements are usually performed by the person in charge. However, recently such announcements have been carried out automatically to save labor.
In an existing automatic message announcement system, a passing train detecting point is located on the route of the train, and of the train passing signal which it emits is logically AND-ed with the "home" or "route" signal (platform entrance signal), which means that the route for going to the platform is clear. This logical AND signal operates a recording machine, for example, a tape recorder or voice magnetic disk type announcement system, on which the message for announcing the approach of the train has previously been recorded. This automatic announcement system accommodates announcement of relatively long messages by providing the passing train detecting point at a location relatively far from the station. But during rush-hour when train traffic is very heavy, or when the departure of a train at the platform is delayed and the next train passes the passing train detecting point before the train at the platform has started, the timing of the message announcing the approaching train will be delayed. Moreover, the announcement may be delayed until after the train has arrived. If the length of the announcement is shortened in order to eliminate this disadvantage the resulting message may not be, sufficient.
In addition, the above-mentioned automatic message announcement system has the disadvantage that only one message of fixed length is available at a time.